Miss Wonderful

I love this book, especially that our two leads are evenly matched in age, status and intelligence. They have a sparkling repartee. Alistair initially comes across as a bit of a Dandy, but you soon learn that there is so much more to him. And Mirabel has had to put her own desires aside to hold her family estate together.

There's a lot of humour and moments that really made me smile. Especially as even though they had indulged in some intimacy, they still addressed each other as Miss O and Mr C. The ancillary characters were also used very well and given full personalities.

The villain of the piece was the tiniest bit pantomimey, but that's a minor point and doesn't really detract

This was my first Loretta Chase book and I loved it. Alistair Carsington swiftly made his way up towards my favorite heroes list. He's not quite in the top 10 (I require a lot of tortured and unrequited love) but he's close. And I loved Mirabel. She was capable and confident without being brutal or conniving and she's honest about her intentions and desires. I just loved her.

I also appreciated the central conflict -- a canal proposed to take coal to market -- Alistair wants it built; Mirabel doesn't. It fit the period and was sufficiently troublesome without being used for (too much) melodrama. There was one event towards the end that was a little much, but this is a romance novel and a little melodrama is to be expected.

A great read.

I really liked both MCs in this story. The author has done a great job of mixing humour and plot with vague level of reality of the social mores of those times. The story is fun and has a strong-minded female with a war-hero finding his place in the world. Recommended :)

This is actually a re-read, but the book held up very well. Alastair Carsington is a war hero who dresses like a fop to make up for the limp from an injury. His father has given him six months to make some money or find a rich heiress. He decides to invest in his friend's canal and travels to Derbyshire to smooth the bumps in getting it started. The biggest bump is Miss Mirabel Oldridge, the intelligent and pretty but badly dressed daughter of one of the men Alastair needs to convince. Her appearance sends him reeling but she's smart enough to use it to convince him the canal is a bad idea.
Their banter is one of the best parts of this book. They really are a wonderful pairing in a very smart story. I also liked seeing the setting in show more Derbyshire, a lovely area of England neglected by a lot of historical writers. I was happy to read this book again and will continue to reread the entire series. show less

The first volume of the Carsington Brothers series and my first book by Ms Chase. I'm not sure why I've put off reading any of her prolific output until now, but it may have something to do with her name reminding me of well-known chanteuse, and imagining that Ms Chase's books were cozy mainstream romances.

It was a huge surprise to discover a decidedly non-cozy and complex story in which the romance between Waterloo veteran Alistair and Derbyshire heiress Mirabel almost takes second place to meticulously researched local and historical colour. Not that the romance between two such apparently mismatched protagonists isn't fascinating in itself. It is, but it never overwhelms the background story of the planning and building of a canal, show more in the course of which we meet a host of intriguing and eccentric characters, and a few token villains.

Ms Chase clearly did her homework in researching Matlock Spa and the Peak District, as well as the procedure for obtaining funding, approval and permission for the building of a canal or a more modern tramway or railway.

I love books that leave you not just happy and satisfied, but also a little wiser about something you didn't know too much about. This was definitely one of those books. show less

Not sure about this Alistair character; he is described as a wastrel, loves clothes, and is considered a hero for something he has no recollection for. Qualities usually not given to lead male characters in books. And to boot our heroine is thirty-one, gasp! What have we here Watson? I'm intrigued.
 
Wow never read someone described so poetically "Her eyes were blue, twilight blue, and for a moment she seemed to be the beginning and end of everything, from the sunrise halo of hair to the dusky blue of her eyes." Uh, sigh. Sign me up to be waxed poetically over.
 
No idea how to take this book. Alistair is constantly distracted by how atrociously Mirabel is dressed, hard for me to connect with a male character so incredibly into fashion. I show more think it was suppose to be funny, but it just weirded me out.The author does an incredible job with her secondary characters, reminds me of Carla Kelly. Captain Hughes was awesome, I absolutely loved how he could turn anything into nautical terms.
 
Alistair's PTSD from the battle of Waterloo and the memories is very heartbreaking to read but the author somehow manages to keep things light and write Alistair's comments and feelings to keep the story from being weighed down in the ugliness of war. Alistair is not the typical scarred war hero, he has a calmness, lightheartedness, and unflappability to keep him from being dark.
 
Ok the canal business started to become tedious halfway through and I was grudgingly trying to understand its importance to the story.
 
Oh man the scene where Mirabel is stripping and Alistair tries to keep looking at his boots starts off funny and then shifts into "make your heart clench in your chest" when Alistair realizes Mirabel has felt ignored for so long and he final gives in and then says "I see you".
 
The last five or so chapters of the book were kind of boring for me. I was annoyed at how stubborn Mirabel was about the canal, which I again want to say took up way too much of the story and the Caleb Finch villain who kidnapped Mirabel's dad seemed like an unnecessary part to add. Mirabel and Alistair's relationship lost some of its spark and I just think the story could have wrapped up sooner. There are some great funny and heart clenching moments throughout but because of the canal and ending not a keeper.
 
B- show less

I really enjoyed Miss Wonderful. The characters are engaging and original. The dialogue sparkles. The prose is fluid and pure fun to read – with a bit of an Austen feel to it for me. Alistair Carsington, the younger son of an earl, is not your typical regency rake. He manages to pull off the incongruous mix of being both a dandy and scarred war hero. He’s very uncomfortable with his fame as a hero and the wounds he earned at Waterloo. The former he thinks is undeserved and the latter is a noticeable limp of which he is ashamed. The thing I liked best about Alistair was how self-effacing he was. He doesn't use his war wounds as an opportunity to brood and rage all over the place. He's charming, chivalrous, and flawed. Even better, he show more isn’t famous for millions of affairs as part of a marriage hating complex. (Love doesn’t exist, my parents didn’t marry for love, all women are conniving mercenaries, bla bla bla.) He’s more of a head ache for his parents, who have had to bail him out of numerous disasters, financial and amorous. I loved the list of Episodes of Stupidity with which his father confronts him, prior to delivering the ultimatum that Alistair must find a way to cease draining his parents financially or his younger brothers will suffer for it. Alistair’s solution is to join his best friend Lord Gordmor in a business venture, the building of a canal in Derbyshire. To this end, Alistair travels to Derbyshire to plead their case with the largest landowner in the area, Mr. Oldridge. Unfortunately, since the death of his wife, Mr. Oldridge has cared for nothing but botanical pursuits, so Alistair has to deal with his daughter, Mirabel, who has run the estate for the past ten years or so. And she is vehemently opposed to Alistair and Gordmor’s project.

From the start it’s clear that Mirabel is an intelligent, capable woman. All the work she does, all the responsibilities she shoulders are very evident in the book, so she’s not one of those “bluestocking” heroines who make vague references to doing math-type things, but never really do anything. She’s genuine and practical, has given up a lot to run the estate, but she doesn’t whine about it. She made her choice years ago to commit herself to this certain path, and though she’s not above missing the fun of her youth, she doesn’t turn her actions into a huge, dramatic sacrifice. Despite (or perhaps because of) being antagonists with regards to the canal, she and Alistair have great chemistry as they disagree, resist each other, and eventually work towards a solution to the obstacles that stand between them. Alistair’s reactions to Mirabel’s sartorial offenses are particularly funny and endearing.

Other reviews of Miss Wonderful are kind of mixed and I can understand how the sedate pacing of the book and its premise might be considered drawbacks. The circumstances under which the hero and heroine meet don’t particularly scream "romantic." Alistair is in Derbyshire for business, and that business is a big part of the book. It’s the plot, what brings the characters together, what everyone talks about a lot of the time. The building of the canal is tied up with the industrial revolution transforming the landscape of rural England at the time, so Miss Wonderful is not your typical balls and tea parties romance. Some might find it tedious, but I thought the author integrated these issues very well with the development of Alistair and Mirabel’s relationship. Alistair is invested in the canal venture because it’s his first chance to stand on his own and make something of himself, let alone save his brothers from ruin. Mirabel is emotionally tied to the land and has made great sacrifices for it. Loretta Chase writes so well that I was never bored with the canal business.

My only objection was the book’s descent into stereotype with the awkward introduction of a devious villain near the end, a kidnapping, the doddering old father, and the heroine’s initial determination to have one night of passion with the hero (because they can never be together) which she will hoard away for the rest of her dreary life. Even though it isn’t the best of books, Miss Wonderful was still a fun, sexy read. show less